A reader asks: Why is Linux still not as user friendly as the two other main OSes with all the people developing for Linux? Is it because it is mainly developed by geeks?
My initial feeling when reading this question was that it was kind of a throwaway, kind of a slam in disguise as a genuine question. But the more I thought about it, the more intrigued I felt. There truly are a large amount of resources being dedicated to the development of Linux and its operating system halo (DEs, drivers, apps, etc). Some of these resources are from large companies (IBM, Red Hat, Novell). Why isn't Linux more user-friendly? Is this an inherent limitation with open source software?

The difference with the Windows installers is that they all work for everyone.

Except when the uninstaller removes shared DLL's that are actually needed by other apps or when the uninstaller simply doesn't work or when you get dead entries in the list of installed software or when the installer won't run because it thinks you're already running it etc etc.
Windows way of doing things is hardly troublefree or ideal.

My whole comment was on installing software that's NOT in the repositories.

The few times I've needed to do that a .deb has always been available. Granted there may not be a package for obscure Linux distro X but that's not what Joe User will be running.